Fairchild Wheeler magnet schools, an urban/suburban mix

Updated 12:41 pm, Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Hundreds of students wait to have their backpacks searched and pass through metal detectors at the start of the school day at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School in Bridgeport, Conn. on Thursday, January 29, 2015. less

Hundreds of students wait to have their backpacks searched and pass through metal detectors at the start of the school day at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School in Bridgeport, Conn. on Thursday, ... more

Lines of students reach down the stairs as they wait to have their backpacks searched and pass through metal detectors at the start of the school day at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School in Bridgeport, Conn. on Thursday, January 29, 2015. less

Lines of students reach down the stairs as they wait to have their backpacks searched and pass through metal detectors at the start of the school day at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School in ... more

Students have their backpacks searched and pass through metal detectors at the start of the school day at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School in Bridgeport, Conn. on Thursday, January 29, 2015.

Students have their backpacks searched and pass through metal detectors at the start of the school day at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School in Bridgeport, Conn. on Thursday, January 29, 2015.

Students have their backpacks searched and pass through metal detectors at the start of the school day at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School in Bridgeport, Conn. on Thursday, January 29, 2015.

Students have their backpacks searched and pass through metal detectors at the start of the school day at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School in Bridgeport, Conn. on Thursday, January 29, 2015.

Students have their backpacks searched and pass through metal detectors at the start of the school day at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School in Bridgeport, Conn. on Thursday, January 29, 2015.

Students have their backpacks searched and pass through metal detectors at the start of the school day at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School in Bridgeport, Conn. on Thursday, January 29, 2015.

BRIDGEPORT -- No one said bringing city and suburban teenagers together under one magnet school roof would be without challenges.

Two years in, the Interdistrict Science Magnet Schools at the Fairchild Wheeler campus are still working hard to unify students from Bridgeport and at least nine suburban communities.

There were rumors, unproven, of de facto segregation at school entrances: urban students, who mostly take the bus, use one entrance while suburban students, who are often driven to school by their parents, use another.

Then there were complaints that lines at the metal detectors and security stations backed up at the bus-riding students' entrance.

The school district implemented, then backed off from, a plan to start the Bridgeport buses 15 minutes earlier each day to give the teens time to get through security and get to class on time.

"We are ... looking into student entry procedures to ensure that all students are treated fairly," Interim Schools Superintendent Fran Rabinowitz said.

The schools' growing pains were evident one recent morning. By the time all 1,057 students should have been in class, many were waiting before a bank of metal detectors, taking off their jackets and opening their book bags so they could be searched. The security guards rushed to keep up with the bottleneck of students who spilled out of 24 buses that arrived all at once.

"Often you will see the girls' line wrap around the base of the stairs," Jay Lipp, a principal at Fairchild.

A complex with three schools, all science-based, Fairchild is not even at capacity. Next year, the school is to have a full complement of four grades and 1,500 students.

Not the first time

This is not the first time questions have been raised about how Fairchild is run. In its first year, the school was criticized by a number of parents for a host of issues. Shavonne Davis, of Bridgeport, pulled her two sons out of the school and put them back into Harding High School because she said they and she were routinely being disrespected by staff members.

Eneida Martinez Walker, a city councilwoman with a daughter at the school, went to the school board with complaints ranging from a lack of support for struggling students to staff respect for parents.

Jessica Allen, whose sophomore daughter is in the biotechnology school, took issue with the fact that students aren't always grouped by ability and some unprepared students seem to slow the classes down.

In response, school staff underwent training last spring in how to provide culturally responsive education.

Walker and Allen both say the school has come a long way toward addressing their complaints.

"It is now situated the way it needed to be," Walker said.

Right after the Christmas break, the bus times for only Bridgeport students were moved 15 minutes earlier.

Tammy Boyle, president of the District Advisory Council, said several parents at Fairchild came to her concerned that the change forced urban children to rise earlier and wait at dark bus stops in difficult neighborhoods.

"No one specifically stated that they thought racism or discrimination were involved, but the undertones were there because the parents kept drawing the difference between how the Bridgeport children were being made to get up earlier, but the suburban children were not," Boyle said. She said the concerned parents did not feel comfortable sharing their names.

Just the suggestion of unfairness between the schools' 751 Bridgeport students and 299 suburban students was enough to have the busing change reversed a week after it went into effect.

Rabinowitz said she called for a moratorium on the change to see if other measures, like adding more security, could solve the problem.

The about-face has been criticized by a number of parents and students -- from Bridgeport and suburban communities -- who say there was nothing unfair about the change.

Keyla Medina, a PTSO president at the school from Bridgeport, said the earlier pick-up meant her daughter had to get to the bus at 6:45 a.m. instead of 7 a.m.

"My daughter was in heaven when they changed it 15 minutes early," Medina said. "She was like, `I hate waking up early, but I love that I don't have to rush, that there are no long lines.' Since they switched it back, kids come in upset, aggravated, arguing."

Susan Neil, a parent from Trumbull, said she didn't understand Bridgeport residents' complaint about the earlier bus pickup.

"Our kids already leave earlier," Neil said. Her son, a junior at Fairchild's bio-tech school, would catch the bus at 6:30 a.m. if she didn't drive him in the morning. And like most suburban kids, he would be taking two buses, one to his home high school and a second to Fairchild Wheeler.

"To say this was a racial or culturally biased thing, no, it's not," said Shvonne Craig, an Ansonia parent who is also African-American. "Don't they realize all buses go to the same entrance? There is no separation."

The physics of school drop-off

Some can't understand why Fairchild has problems getting students past security on time, when Bridgeport's Central High School, with 1,640 students, seems to handle it.

There are two entrances to the 250,000-square-foot Fairchild complex, which is carved into a park-like area off Old Town Road. The buses use a flat area on one side. The other side, for car drop-offs, is too small for buses to maneuver around.

The original plan, Lipp said, was to have many more students walk to school. The lack of sidewalks leading to the school changed that. When the idea of making bus pick-up times earlier was raised, he said, it was brought before the PTSO and School Governance Council.

Medina, the PTSO president, said the parents upset about the change either were not at meetings or didn't speak up.

JazMarie Melendez, 16, a Fairchild junior from Bridgeport, called it the bus schedule change a "pick your battle kind of thing."

"My friends were like `Oh great, now we have to wake up earlier,' but I think everyone kind of understood it's either this or we are going to have a crazy line," she said. "I think more people were complaining about going to class late. Or these lines, which are out of control."